


A Favour Returned

by Polyphony



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Scandal In Belgravia, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 02:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyphony/pseuds/Polyphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene lost everything to Sherlock Holmes' ego. How does it feel to have him at her mercy at last?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She should have expected it, really.

After all, when you have been captain of your own ship for most of your adult life, to be suddenly cast adrift in a foreign sea and left to sink or swim keeps one pretty busy on the whole. Well, for a while anyway, and she should know, she’s been there – twice.

Creating an empire from scratch is a steep learning curve for a penniless twenty-something, even one with her particular flair. Oh, but English men are so easy. Oh, they are! She smiles and shakes her head. They are so unfailingly transparent, particularly the public school/ancient university/Foreign Office types. Something about the boarding school ethos, perhaps? The why barely matters, just knee-jerk reactions so deeply embedded in the psyche that tapping into them is child’s play for a woman like her; it’s what makes her such a successful businesswoman.

Too successful.

Even now it rankles. She zips up the dust cover of her current favourite suit with unnecessary force, smoothing a hand over its surface apologetically; time was when she had Kate to do all this for her. Still, it’s no use crying over spilt milk, she reproaches herself; it was just sheer bad luck. She hangs the suit in its accustomed place on the long rail of garments, exits and closes the wardrobe door. She didn’t do anything wrong; not a thing.

Too many secrets, too many enemies. That one little piece of tech, her phone, contained enough intel to bring down several governments. She should have resisted her natural patriotism and gone straight to the Americans: they would have been so much easier to deal with.

By rights, she should be dead – fanatical creatures in Karachi, no appreciation of her talents whatsoever – and the irony still burned; she owed him. She hated it.

America was a much tougher market to crack, Irene had to admit. Bigger, of course, and with higher stakes. She couldn’t go it alone here, and she had to admit that she wasn’t getting any younger. Some of her clients had requirements she couldn’t fulfil personally – she’d had to recruit and train.

Then out of the blue the text: “Goodbye, Miss Adler. SH”.

She was no longer in a position to make detailed enquiries, there were still too many people left in the world with a grudge against her to risk exposure; if Sherlock Holmes had given her nothing else, he had taught her that. Still, the truth will out and the story of the two men who fought and then fell from the Reichenbach Building in Berlin had been newsworthy enough for most channels to carry until the details ran dry and they lost interest. In her enforced exile, Irene finds it easier simply to forget and to bury her curiosity in her work. However, if she were to be honest she still finds it difficult to believe that either of them could actually perish at all, let alone in such a pedestrian manner.

Suddenly in need of some air, Irene slides open the balcony door and goes outside to lean against the parapet. It is unseasonably warm here with the smells of diesel, petrol and tar emanating from the road beneath. The traffic is quiet because the hour is late, but the city is still lit up with billboards, streetlights and headlamps; people still go about their business, oblivious to the time of day.

“The city that never sleeps,” she murmurs, leaning her elbows on the rail. A faint breeze twines around the folds of her dressing gown like tendrils of homesickness.

Irene stares at the city for a few moments longer before returning indoors. Earlier, she had some vague intention of pouring herself a drink, something she rarely does – a bad idea, losing any atom of control – but as soon as she steps back into the room she freezes, all her senses screaming at her.

Not the terrorists again, her subconscious tells her calmly; the signals are different. Alright; she forces down panic and lets her practical side buckle on its armour. Already she feels the cool liquid of reason spreading through her veins.

Okay: what alerted me? A sound, a sign, a movement in the corner of the eye?

No, none of these. She inhales briefly and pauses, frowning. She gives an experimental sniff and narrows her eyes. Something not – not _her _; not her cosmetics, not her fur and leather, not her furnishings. Silently, she slides her feet out of her slippers and her body out of her robe. The silk has barely fallen before she is off in a flash across the carpeted floor, head turning from side to side as she tries to catch anomalies before they catch her. A very small blade appears in her left hand; compact and very, very sharp. Few people have seen it, none of them still lives; Irene’s kid gloves disappeared many years ago.__

She inches her way around the doorframe, silencing her internal monologue about the shortcomings of her very expensive security company – she will deal with them later – and stands debating her options: bathroom, wardrobe, office, bedroom.

The office is locked, the key code changed daily and known only to her. This alone would not stop a really skilled burglar effecting ingress that way of course, but without the code the booby trap on the door hinge should certainly put paid to the attempt - permanently. The bathroom is windowless and Irene’s customised security system ensured that anyone trying to gain entry using the ventilation shaft would already have suffered a very unpleasant demise. As a hiding place, it cannot yet be ruled out though, so she shifts her knife into her right hand and reaches for the doorknob. Pulling the light cord reveals exactly zero – nothing disturbed, nothing different. Slightly spooked, Irene spins around, belatedly covering her back; still nothing. She exhales silently and changes the grip on her knife once again.

The wardrobe is next on the list and is also intriguingly possible as a hiding place, but for the fact that Irene visited it herself not ten minutes previously. Nevertheless for the sake of completeness, Irene pads over to it, keeping her back to the double-locked front door, and quietly slips the latch. She inhales a full breath, taking in leather, fabric, solvent from dry-cleaning, wax and shoe polish. Nothing untoward, just as she thought; she closes the door.

That leaves the bedroom. Her mouth twists – how very conventional.

The door is ajar. Irene remembers leaving it that way when she took off her jewellery earlier in the evening. Giving up all pretence of secrecy, she pushes the door fully open and snaps on the light, shifting her little knife to throwing position as she does so.

“Bravo,” rasps a gravelly voice from the bed; a slow handclap follows. “So glad you could make it; I was beginning to lose the will to live.”

Sherlock Holmes looks up at her from where he is sitting on her bed reading her bedtime paperback. He glances back at the text and replaces her bookmark.

“P.D. James,” he says, shaking his head, “Really, I expected better of you.”

Irene lowers her knife and releases a pent-up breath.

“What did you expect?” she replies, “Stephen Hawking?”

It’s a pretty poor riposte she has to admit, but forgiveable under the circumstances. Sherlock gestures towards her lack of attire and cocks an eyebrow.

“I’ve seen that one before,” he remarks, “but I applaud your choice; a split-second’s distraction would be all you’d need.”

“Yes,” she agrees, reaching behind the door for her second-best dressing gown then stops to stare at his droll smile. “What?”

He gives the ghost of a laugh, rusty and unused.

“Has time improved your sense of modesty, Miss Adler?” he asks mockingly. She shakes her head.

“Hardly,” she responds, “however, adrenaline released in situations of fight or flight redistributes blood flow.” She smiles brightly. “I’m cold.” She finishes tying the sash.

“Come on,” she says from the doorway, “I was about to pour myself a drink. You’d better join me, Mr Holmes: I have a feeling that this may possibly take all night.”

The Pol Roger would have benefitted from a longer chilling period, Irene thinks, but it’s still a perfect accompaniment to the microwaved pizza with watercress and rocket salad which was the most her kitchen could provide at short notice. To her surprise, Sherlock eats if not quite as though he were starving, at least with some semblance of appetite. She gives him the once-over with her eyes; he’s lost weight, she thinks critically, and it doesn’t suit him. He always was too thin but now he actually looks years older than his actual age of – what? – thirty, thirty-two years? Is this deliberate, she wonders? A disguise maybe, or perhaps just the effect of too much adrenaline, too little sleep and no security. These thoughts unsettle her; she is more accustomed to having her maternal feelings express themselves in a more disciplined manner.

“Where have you been?” she asks into the silence. Sherlock shrugs.

“Here and there,” he replies. She gives him an old-fashioned look that reminds him disconcertingly of his brother Mycroft. He sighs and rolls his eyes; it covers his uneasiness. Irene smiles and smiles then shakes her head.

“You’re fifteen years old,” she tells him teasingly when he shoots her a questioning look. “Oh, never mind. Look, are you being close-mouthed on this for your own protection, my protection or simply because you’re a bloody-minded man who has his back to the wall and not in a good way?”

Sherlock seems to consider this question seriously.

“I think probably for your protection,” he concedes, “but that would also bleed into my own safety at present, so I imagine all three of your solutions would pass.”

Irene turns her head away to hide a smile.

“How long do you intend to stay here?” she asks. Sherlock turns his head to regard her fully.

“I don’t know,” he replies, uncertainty creeping into his tone for the first time, “It depends.”

“On what?” she asks. He steeples his fingers in that familiar gesture and prepares to pontificate, rattling off facts at Brands Hatch speed as is his custom, but Irene holds up a beautifully manicured index finger and the words die in his throat.

“Let’s see how much I can deduce, shall we?” she said quietly.

Irene curls her long legs under her on the sofa and settles her hands tidily in her lap.

“The English press reported you dead a year ago,” she begins after a small pause to compose her thoughts. “John Watson refused to speak about you to the press and never fully recovered from the loss, so the tabloids insist.” She sneaks a quick glance at Sherlock’s features but his expression doesn’t move a muscle.

“It was all very dramatic,” she continues. “You and Jim Moriarty met at the top of the Reichenbach Building in Berlin and climbed the old radio tower on the roof for reasons unknown to anyone, particularly as the tower had been superseded by a radio mast in the 1990s and is now redundant. Unsurprisingly, wind, weather and age put paid to the stability of the structure some time ago – it was only there for sentimental reasons after all – metal fatigue took its toll and the whole thing toppled over the edge into the street taking you and Jim with it. Mercifully, at 4am the street was empty so no other people were involved. You and Moriarty were both reported dead, bodies were produced.” Irene smiles again. “But I know better than anyone how much that kind of proof is worth.”

She leans back in her seat to stretch her legs and raises her arms above her head; the motion tightens the silk of her gown around her chest. To her surprise, she observes a muscle jump in Sherlock’s cheek. Interesting.

“I am guessing that you weren’t the only one to survive Reichenbach,” she continues, “and the increasing likelihood of Jim Moriarty’s continued existence has given me quite a lot of late nights over the past year.”

“Scared of him, are you?” Sherlock sneers. Irene does not smile.

“Yes,” she says simply, "Very." Sherlock gives her a long look then bows his head in silent apology.

“Anyway,” she continues, “I am deducing that you have decided to remain dead in order to work outside the law in your pursuit of Moriarty and also the rest of his criminal network. John Watson may or may not know what you are doing, but I have a hunch that you have deliberately allowed him to believe that you are dead.”  


Sherlock snorts inelegantly.

“Hunches are for amateurs,” he replies scornfully.

“Alright then,” Irene sits up and curls her legs under her again, “If John Watson had even the vaguest notion that you were still alive, he would have followed and found you by now. And both of you would no doubt be dead, because that is exactly what Moriarty would be expecting him to do.” She shakes her head in admiration.

“You really did learn a great deal from our little altercation in Belgravia, didn’t you?” she remarks and her tone is glacial.

“What did you expect me to do?” Sherlock returns equally coldly. “John is not an analytical being, despite being a doctor and a soldier. It is better for all of us that he remains in ignorance.”

“Better than living a lie, you mean?” Some steel starts to leech into Irene’s tone; her professional persona interfering again, she tells herself. Sherlock gives a shrug.

“He couldn’t help me,” he replies equably, “and his total belief in my death is necessary for the success of my quest.”

“For Moriarty?”

“For Sebastian Moran.”

“Moran, eh?” Irene raises her beautifully shaped eyebrows, “Since when did Moran become a player, Mr Holmes?”

Sherlock Holmes leans back against the sofa cushions, evidently very weary. Irene smiles; he can barely keep his eyes open, or perhaps that is just the effect of the mild sedative in the wine? Strange that Sherlock Holmes should allow himself to fall for the same trick twice.

Irene rises from the sofa and gathers up the crockery to take to the kitchen. She stacks the plates in the small dishwasher and washes the glasses, drying them carefully on a glass cloth. She disposes of the rest of the wine down the sink and the pizza crust in the waste disposal. Drying her hands on a towel, she glides back to where Sherlock is lying on the sofa, his eyes closed, to all intents and purposes asleep. She reaches out a hand to smooth his wayward curls away from his face.

“You’ve gained some new wrinkles since we last met,” she says softly. “You’ve been all over the world, haven’t you? I may not have the all resources I once did, but times change and so do networks. Mine are so much wider now that I’ve learned to process the data all by myself. I’ve you to thank for that, Mr Holmes. You taught me the dangers of becoming too visible. Oh, did you – in spades!”

Irene leans down and kisses him very gently on the forehead.

“You’ll find him,” she whispers, “Sebastian Moran. He’s not been quite as clever as he thinks he has. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Sherlock’s eyes flicker open just a fraction; Irene smiles and strokes his hand.

“Hush,” she says, “Sleep now. You’re safe here, I promise.”

She covers him with a soft woollen blanket which smells of lilies; Sherlock Holmes sleeps.


	2. Chapter 2

Irene is up early. Well, truth to tell she didn’t really sleep. She spent what remained of the night online, talking to her contacts, setting up appointments, breaking others, all untraceable. _Thank you, Jim, _she thinks ironically as she closes the lid, mission accomplished for now.__

Sherlock Holmes stirs under the blanket and Irene responds to the cue by disappearing into the kitchen. She returns with a sandwich so precisely cut she might have used a set square and a bottle of water still with its manufacturer’s seal intact. She sets them both down on the coffee table and sits on the edge of the sofa to wait.

She doesn’t wait long. Sherlock Holmes is already half-conscious and beginning to try to move. She helps him, taking his hand, guiding him into a sitting position and propping him up with cushions. He grunts and rubs grit out of his eyes then turns that piercing gaze on her.

“What was it?” he demands. She shrugs.

“A soluble version of what I gave you before,” she replies, “just much less of it. Oh, don’t worry.” She laughs at him.

“You know,” she continues conversationally, “when I told you last time that I’d used the drug on several of my friends, that was the pure unvarnished truth; here.” She passes him the sandwich and the water bottle. He ignores the former with smirking contempt; she gives him an innocent look. He studies the bottle taking particular note of the cap and breaks the seal, taking a long drink.

Irene leans back against the cushions and watches while Sherlock Holmes drains his water bottle; dehydration is an unfortunate side effect of her drug of choice. When he has finished, she once again offers him the sandwich.

“I told you no,” he responds in mild puzzlement. She nods.

“I know,” she replies evenly, “but I think you’ve got about fifteen minutes before you’re going under again, so I really would try to eat something before it hits if I were you. Oh, you won’t suffer any more than you already have – no sickness or anything – but honestly, Mr Holmes, you’re far too thin. You can’t afford to starve; now eat.”

Sherlock Holmes stares at her, then at the bottle of water. She shrugs.

“Hypodermic needles are good for a number of things,” she murmurs.

 

Sherlock Holmes is once again asleep, this time in her bed. He has been remarkably compliant, eating the sandwich (smoked salmon, cream cheese and dill infused with Rohypnol-clone Flunitroxepam – the water was entirely innocent, so difficult to disguise the taste) and lurching into her bedroom half-conscious, leaning heavily on her shoulder. She manages to get his coat off and hung on the door hook before he face-plants on her quilt.  
Irene sighs; she hates this part. Men are so heavy and uncooperative when they’re under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Even if they manage to rouse themselves a bit, they’re invariably randy as hell which is a nuisance because although the spirit might be willing, this drug is a depressant and the flesh is rarely anything other than flabby.

Sherlock Holmes appears to be the exception to the rule, she notices, intrigued. She has dispensed with his shoes and socks, unbuttoned his shirt and removed it and has started in on his trousers, working them halfway down his legs when she realises he is responding to some kind of unconscious stimulus; he is half-hard and rapidly getting all the way there. Irene resists the temptation to take a peek. She is a businesswoman and whilst her profession requires her to have the requisite intimate knowledge of her clients to discipline or humiliate them to their own satisfaction, she seems to have a talent for calculating exactly how far she can go without overstepping the mark. Irene herself has no worries whatsoever about the exposure of her own physical body, but she guards the secrets of her heart like a mother tigress. She deduces that Sherlock Holmes is inexperienced enough to view what she has already done as an unpardonable liberty. She smiles affectionately; she will not deliberately make things any worse.

She leaves him his boxers to shield his modesty, rolls him in her duvet and draws the curtains, leaving him in a warm kind of twilight. The dose this time was much larger and she knows he will be out for most of the day. She nods with satisfaction and leans over to push his hair off his forehead.

 

Irene returns from several very busy hours in town with a supermarket carrier over one arm and a briefcase in the other hand. She breezes past the security desk, nodding to the guard, waves a hand over the fingerprint scanner to activate the lift and uses two of her four passkeys to enter the apartment. She keys in the office code and slips her briefcase onto the desk before securing the door once more – one really cannot be too careful, particularly with an arch-enemy in the house, so to speak – and dumps the carrier bag in the hallway while she goes to check the bedroom.

She opens the door silently and pads inside, her boots making no noise on the carpet. The lump in the centre of the bed is motionless; she cannot even detect breathing. She frowns and takes a step towards the centre of the room then stops and stands, disgusted with herself, as an arm snakes around her neck followed by a stabilising hand applying pressure to the back of her neck. Calling on all her past training in such situations Irene relaxes, knowing that the more she struggles, the less time she will have before unconsciousness claims her.

“Don’t,” she manages to rasp. He laughs humourlessly against her ear, sending shivers down her neck despite her predicament.

“Why not?” he replies; he loosens his chokehold a fraction.

“I had my reasons,” she responds, “Will you let me explain them?”

Sherlock Holmes actually pauses; when he speaks again, his anger is all the greater for his indecision. He tightens his arm viciously.

“I could snap your neck in a heartbeat,” he whispers. “Despite his doctor status, John knows eleven ways to kill an unarmed adversary with his bare hands; he taught me three of them.”

“You – only need one,” she manages.

Irene keeps her body very still; she knows instinctively that it will take very little provocation for this man to kill her out of hand. She doubts he will be able to dispose of the body though, and his appreciation of that fact might be the only reason she is still breathing. Slowly, so slowly, he releases her and she falls forward on her knees, gasping hoarsely.

“Why did you drug me?” he hisses, wrapping strong fingers round her arm and jerking it painfully behind her back.

“There’s no need for this,” she protests, struggling to break free, “That hurts!”

“It’s meant to,” he responds coldly. “Start talking.”

“I can’t while you’re breaking my arm!”

Reluctantly, he lets her pull free. She pouts at him, rubbing the bruises that are bound to show up some time tomorrow.

“My clients don’t like to see damage,” she tells him. “They prefer to have the bruises on their own skins, not mine.”

“Really,” Sherlock raises a speculative eyebrow, “then, Miss Adler, perhaps you need a few refresher courses in your art: you clearly don’t know how to whip someone without raising a welt.”

Irene struggles to keep her jaw in place. She forces a lazy smile.

“Are you offering to instruct me?” she says after a beat or two. He smiles back, recognising her slight discomfiture for what it was.

“If you wish,” he replies, “but living and dead flesh respond rather differently to the actions of a riding crop or any other kind of flogging instrument.”

“Is that a threat?” she keeps the tone light. He merely raises an eyebrow.

 _Deuce, I think. ___

Irene gestures to the door.

“Will we keep this civilised over a drink in the living room?” she asks. Sherlock smiles nastily and shakes his head.

“The living room, yes,” he replies, “but I know better than to accept anything comestible from you.”

Irene shakes her head.

“Mr Holmes,” she says, “will you take my word that I will not adulterate anything you consume here this evening and further, will you take a drink and a meal with me tonight? It may take me a little while to explain myself as you have asked – please join me in some refreshment.”  
Sherlock Holmes seems to consider. He rolls some of the tension out of his shoulders as he stands.

“I confess that I am hungry,” he replies. “Dinner and something to drink would be acceptable.”

Irene flashes him a look but his bland expression halts her potentially flirtatious comment in its tracks. She merely nods and leads the way.

 

Dinner is at once appetising, nutritious and not too heavy for a man who has clearly been on short commons for some time. The table is resplendent with crisp, white linens, gleaming wineglasses and silver cutlery and the candle in the centre burns with a sultry light. Sherlock eats everything Irene sets before him, slowly and with apparent appreciation. He sips at his Pinot Noir sparingly and does not speak at all until dessert is finished. The maid who serves them glides in and out of the kitchen discreetly, melting into the background, clearly accustomed to such occasions. She clears, serves coffee and then departs, closing the door behind her. Irene toys with a small square of chocolate and smiles at Sherlock Holmes.

“Now we can talk,” she tells him. He inclined his head and raised his eyebrows, clearly expecting her to lead the way.

“Why did you come here?” she asks, running her fingers over the stem of her wineglass absently. Sherlock Holmes sighs.

“A favour owed,” he replies. “Believe me, Miss Adler, if I had any other choice I would have taken it and damn the consequences.”

Irene nods understandingly.

“And now you want my help,” she tells him; it’s not a questions. He nods unwillingly.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he replies. For the first time, he raises his eyes to look her in the face.

“Miss Adler, you have no need to fear Jim Moriarty,” Sherlock Holmes begins in a gentler tone than before. “I saw the body after Reichenbach; I dragged him off the balcony that broke his fall and I made certain he was dead.”

There is a tiny snapping sound as the thin stem of his wineglass breaks under the pressure of his fingers. Irene barely blinks as she reaches for a spare and deftly transfers his remaining wine into it.

“Go on,” she murmurs. Sherlock Holmes looks at the wine as though he has never seen it before then he knocks it back in one huge gulp and replaces the glass on the tabletop gently.

“Mycroft was – thorough,” he continues quietly. “He took the body through several DNA tests using different samples obtained quite illegally, of course, and he confirmed that James Moriarty is indeed resting unquietly, I hope, as ashes somewhere under the English Channel.”

He pauses for a moment and reached for the wine bottle to replenish their glasses; he doesn’t touch his coffee.

“I knew it was Moriarty from the outset,” Sherlock Holmes continues, reaching into his inside pocket, “because of the text I had immediately after his death. I received it almost the instant he died.”

He fiddles with the phone then offers it to Irene; she takes it and immediately feels a shiver go down her spine.

The king is dead: long live the king.  
SM

“SM – Sebastian Moran?” she says, lifting her eyes to his. He nods, lips compressed in a firm line.

“He’s taken over,” Sherlock Holmes starts to pace her carpet, hands behind his back. “Moriarty’s back-up just in case things didn’t go according to plan, and they didn’t – in a big way.”

He throws his hands in the air in frustration.

“I’ve got close to Moran four or five times in the past six months,” he tells her passionately. “Once, I even got his head in the sights of my gun, _damnit!” ___

The last word is shouted in utter exasperation. Irene frowns, still staring at the text message.

“Why did you go into hiding?” she asks apropos of nothing. She looks up suddenly and surprises an odd expression quickly shuffled into his usual bland mask. He shrugs, elaborately casual.

“Playing for time,” he tells her, “catching him off his guard – you know the drill, Miss Adler, why ask?”

Irene shakes her head.

“No, that’s not it - not really,” she replies, thinking furiously, “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

She works it through: _Moriarty killed by the fall, or by Sherlock – unknown unless he admits it (no witnesses) but syntax used when talking about it indicates murder. Text from Moran – the takeover was planned. If SH were not totally sure about Moriarty’s death, I would be suspicious for that reason alone. SH clearly hates Moran too – why? What has he done to unleash this-this torrent of real hatred from such a man? ___

“John,” Irene says suddenly. She turns to Sherlock Holmes.

“Look at me, Mr Holmes,” she said, reaching to grab his jaw, forcing him to meet her eyes. He bats her hands away and turns his back.

“John Watson,” she repeats. “Where is he?”

There is silence and Irene feels a very real dread creep up her spine.

“Sherlock,” she whispers, “he’s not – not…?”

A brittle sound escapes the great man’s throat; he shakes his head.

“No, he’s not,” Sherlock says remarkably calmly, “but they got to him and if I hadn’t been in the area…”

He breaks off and presses his lips together, refusing to meet her eyes.

“If you hadn’t been stalking him, you mean?” Irene returns steadily. “Unable to keep away, even though you knew he believed you were dead?” A few beats pass before Sherlock gives a stiff nod.

“Exactly so,” he says, “and if I hadn’t threatened a contract window-cleaner at gunpoint, John would be dead. As it is, he’s in a coma in the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at UCL.” Sherlock sighs.

“And this is down to Moran, is it?” Irene asks. It takes a long time, but eventually Sherlock nods reluctantly.

“They don’t hold out much hope for John, actually,” he continues almost conversationally. “He’s been in a coma for several months now and the doctors are divided in their opinion as to whether there is permanent brain damage. We won’t know for sure unless and until he wakes – which is looking less and less likely as the days trickle by.”

Irene looks up at his dispassionate face and notes a muscle jumping in his jaw. She leans her cheek gently against his chest and brings her arms around him. After some little hesitation, she feels his hands slide over her shoulder blades. They stand for a while in precarious harmony until Irene feels an infinitesimal tensing of Sherlock’s spine. She pulls back reluctantly – despite her preference for women, there is a certain warmth and solidity about a man’s body – and sighs noiselessly.

“There’s a bedroom made up for you,” she tells him, “should you wish to use it.” He snorted inelegantly.

“I’ve been sleeping all day,” he complains, “thanks to you.” She shrugs. His eyes narrow.

“And you never did explain your reasons,” he says and smiled crookedly. “Well played, Miss Adler. May I trouble you for a rematch?”

“Indeed you may,” she replies gravely, “but unlike you, I have been hard at work today. Explanations will keep until tomorrow, believe me.”

Sherlock’s mouth twists into a wry smile.

“Miss Adler,” he says, “I almost believe you.”

“Good,” she replies with a blinding grin, “then I’ll leave you here to sleep or not as you wish. Do you see how much I trust you? I will be sleeping like a baby in my own bed.”

Sherlock declines to make any reply. Or perhaps he can’t think of a suitable one.


	3. Chapter 3

Irene sleeps fitfully. She is too curious about the situation, too excited by Sherlock’s presence once again in her life to settle to any meaningful unconsciousness. She hears him pacing the living room muttering to himself with the odd angry outburst. She pulls her pillow over her head and groans aloud; she has cancelled her appointments for the next two days, but her distraction and his impatience together will make her non-functional if she doesn’t get some meaningful rest.

She sits up suddenly; there is total silence from the living room, then slow footsteps tread heavily out of the door and into the hallway. She sighs in relief; he is going to bed, thank god. But the footsteps change direction and move towards her door where they stop. Irene is out of bed and padding noiselessly to the threshold before she has thought about it. She lays her palm against the wood of the door and wonders. She imagines Sherlock’s hand against the opposite surface, stroking the grain of the wood.

Irene stays there, hand against the door, long after the footsteps have resumed and turned away from her. What to do? The situation is no clearer and she fears her position is rapidly becoming untenable. It is a long while before she gets back into her bed and even longer before she sleeps.

 

Irene wakes, fully and immediately and with no sense of having slept at all. Her hand snakes silently under her pillow and grasps a thin, coiled wire with two blunt handles. Garrotting wire in hand, she turns her head slowly to assess what woke her.

He is standing silently on the threshold of her room, the door wide open, just standing. He is like an alabaster statue, motionless, dressed in creased boxers and nothing else. She narrows her eyes; maybe he is sleepwalking?

“Sherlock,” she manages, her voice heavy; he turns his head. She sits up, switching on the bedside lamp, and beckons silently. He walks towards her with careful measured steps.

“Is there something wrong?” she asks. He shakes his head.

“Sit down,” she tells him. Almost reluctantly, he perches on the edge of her bed.

“What do you need?” she asks quietly, with no inflection.

“Moran,” is the immediate answer, voice low and gravelled with tension.

Irene’s lips stretch into a humourless smile and takes his hand unresisting : she has come to a decision.

“You came to the right place,” she tells him after a long pause. He cocks his head and looks at her quizzically. _Working out whether I mean for Moran, his own safety or some other reason. ___

“You deduced correctly,” she continues calmly. “Moran is… well, let’s just say I know what he likes.”

Sherlock’s chin jerks up and his eyes sharpen.

“Where is he?” he whispers harshly. Irene shakes her head.

“What, so you can hare off with blood in your eye and murder on your mind and make the rumours true? I don’t think so.” she says harshly. Sherlock’s face goes stony.

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” he responds loftily.

“So it seems,” she says crisply. “Sherlock, I will give you Moran. It will cost me – maybe everything I have, so God knows why I’m going to do it, but I will give him to you. However, you must do it my way.”

Sherlock’s body seems to spring to life. He stares at her with narrowed eyes.

“So you _do _know where he is!” he hisses. “Irene…” She shakes her head and cuts him off with a gesture.__

“No, Sherlock,” she replies firmly, some of her professional persona coming to the surface, “It doesn’t work that way. It will happen, I promise, but you _must _trust me on this.”__

He raises a sardonic eyebrow at the word and his lips twist in a smirk. She sighs.

“Oh, shut up,” she sighs softly, “How John put up with you all this time is completely beyond me.”

Sherlock’s eyes slide away and he looks at the carpet. _Interesting._

“Moran was personally responsible?” she ventures, “For John’s – condition, I mean?”

Sherlock closes his eyes. A shiver goes through his thin body, although the room is warm.

“After my death, Moran took a private interest in my – shall we say, estate,” Sherlock says slowly. “He was Moriarty’s right-hand man in every way.”

“And James Moriarty was obsessed with anything and everything relating to you,” Irene adds.

“What?” she protests as Sherlock stares at her. “Moriarty decided that in order to defeat you, he had to understand you, and in order to do that he had to find out for himself what made your relationship with John so special. He found a John of his own, but I’m betting that Moran just didn’t cut it for some reason.”

Sherlock’s face twists and he turns away from the light.

“Moran didn’t fit the bill partly because unlike Moriarty, he is _mostly _sane,” Irene continues in a quieter tone, “but that’s not the whole story. Moriarty trusted no one – no one at all. But you trust John, don’t you, Sherlock?”__

Irene’s voice is soft and she lays a light hand on his shoulder. Sherlock makes no reply but nor does he move away.

“You trust John,” she continues, “and in your own peculiar, twisted way, you love him.”

Sherlock snorts quietly in disgust and smirks sardonically, but he doesn’t deny it. Irene smiles sadly.

“This is revenge,” she says, “isn’t it, Sherlock?” Her hand tightens on his shoulder.

“This is more than just mopping up the dregs of Moriarty’s empire,” she continues. “If it were just that, you wouldn’t be here. I imagine Mycroft would be only too pleased to assist in Moran’s demise, if you cared to ask him, but you won’t because it’s personal.”

Irene nods faintly to herself.

“You want to do it yourself, don’t you?” she says, wonder and admiration in her voice. “You want to take him apart slowly, inch by inch; you need him to know why, each time you drag him kicking and screaming another millimetre nearer to his death; you want to take your time – don’t you? And you want me to help you.”

Sherlock lowers his head and makes no reply but Irene can see the tension in his shoulders. She runs a soothing hand across them and down his bare back, feeling the infinitesimal shifts of muscles against his ribs and spine. He makes a tiny sound, hardly voiced at all, but she is experienced enough in the ways of men to interpret it. She reaches for him and pulls him against her, wrapping her arms around his slight torso.

“Oh, Sherlock,” she mutters. To her horror, she feels faint prickling behind her eyes. What is happening to her? He shivers again, this time in response to a blast from the air con. Irene picks up the edge of her duvet and covers his shoulders with it. He sags suddenly, all tension evaporating from his muscles leaving him slack and pliant against her. Her balance compromised, she allows his slight weight to press them both back into the bedclothes.

Irene knows what Sherlock wants. It’s a talent she has always possessed from a very young age, the ability to intuit what people like. At first, it was useful and ensured her status amongst her peers despite her shyness, her reticence. It was only when she grew beautiful that she realised her talent was a two-edged sword.

Irene’s touches are gentle and lightweight, skimming over surface muscles, making Sherlock twitch against his better judgment. She doesn’t try to kiss his mouth or caress his hair, much as she would like to ascertain whether either is as soft as she has imagined in unguarded moments.

“No,” he breathes hoarsely and she stills her hands. After a moment that seems to last for hours, he turns and deliberately stretches out on his back, waiting. Slowly, giving him plenty of time to change his mind, Irene reaches for the waistband of his boxers.

“Aah!” he hisses as she touches him. His body jerks reflexively before he is able to clamp down on his response and he bites his lip hard against any further outburst. Irene’s eyes are very wide but her hand is skilled; this won’t take very long, she thinks.

“I…” Sherlock manages against quickening breaths, “I can’t – it’s not…”

Irene swallows hard; she has never in her life felt so consistently out of her depth.

“Shhh!” her voice is gentle although she trembles, “You’re safe; you can let go, I promise.”

She smiles through suddenly misty eyes.

“It’s fine, Sherlock,” she tells him, “it’s all fine.”

Sherlock’s eyes widen; he stares, for once truly seeing her, and the distraction pushes him sharply over the edge. He convulses hard, body jack-knifing in something more akin to agony than pleasure. Smothering his face in her pillow, he sobs out his release.

Irene gentles him through it, rubbing slow circles over his back and shoulders and murmuring nonsense into his ears. Slowly, he quietens and his laboured breathing evens out until, all in a rush, his body relaxes against hers and he tumbles headlong into sleep.

Irene pokes him gently with a finger and thinks ironically that if she had done this earlier, she could have saved on the drugs. She sighs and contemplates sleeping in the bedroom assigned to Sherlock but really, she can’t be bothered to worm her arm out from under his body and get out of bed; so much better to snuggle closer – for warmth, of course – and just drift.

 

She is sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee, dressed casually with her face bare of make-up when she hears movement from her bedroom. The shower is turned on for a brief five minutes, and then footsteps disappear down the corridor followed by the slam of a door.

Presently he returns and enters the kitchen fully dressed and silent as the grave, accepting the proffered coffee without thanks and taking the chair opposite her. Five minutes passes; the faint sounds of traffic seep in from outside.

“You weren’t together, were you?” Irene says into the silence. Sherlock narrows his eyes quizzically. She smiles and shakes her head.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she tells him. “You can barely think of anything else – all that lost time when you could have been with him.”

Sherlock takes a deliberately long pull at his coffee.

“If you are talking about John,” he says slowly, turning the mug around in his hands, “I have always known that his inclinations were – more orthodox than my own.”

Irene nods.

“Yes,” she replies, “but you always knew that he’s at least a three on the Kinsey scale…”

“You think that it matters!” The words burst out of him. He brings his mug down on the kitchen table with too much force slopping coffee over the rim. He looks at the mess and sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands.

“Miss Adler,” he begins with mock-patience, “the fundamentals of your so-called profession concern a basic human need; a need which, due to the complexities and deviances of life in the 21st century, can involve some unusual and at times bizarre practices to satisfy. However, sex, unlike breathing hunger, thirst, sleep and elimination, is not a prerequisite for life.”

He stops speaking and looks speculatively into his mug.

“I was alone,” he said quietly, “and then John was there. That’s all. What we did together last night, Miss Adler, bears no relation to…”

“Alright; alright.” Irene lowers her face and studies her coffee intently. She takes a shallow, ragged breath but her eyes when she looks him directly in the face are stony.

“You can have Moran,” she says in a low voice. “You can have him today; I’ve set it up. Do with him what you will, but I won’t help you, you hear? I won’t help you murder him.”

Irene puts both hands on the table top to push herself to her feet, but the movement is arrested as Sherlock covers one of them with his own. His face is grave but his fingers are warm as he pulls her hand to his mouth and places a tiny kiss in the centre of her palm.

“Thank you,” he says huskily, pale eyes boring into hers. His chair scrapes the floor as he rises to leave the kitchen; Irene’s palm burns like a brand.

 

Epilogue

Irene sits back from her computer her eyebrows almost in her hairline.

“Well!” she says out loud. A small smile edges its way on to her face as she leaves her office, for once forgetting to lock it behind her, and goes to the living room to pour herself a celebratory glass of wine.

Behind her, the computer scrolls through each tab before closing:

Massive drugs ring uncovered: Interpol and FBI report the scale of it as “unparalleled”;

Illegal arms factory destroyed by rogue Taliban missile: arms were destined for insurgents, sources in Kabul say;

US Government Officials report record number of arrests: “The crackdown on organised crime has been a runaway success”;

Another British Soldier killed in Afghanistan: a skirmish with insurgents yesterday claimed the life of Col. Sebastian Moran. Colleagues described him as a brave and resourceful soldier who died in the defence of his comrades. His family have been informed;

Plot to assassinate Kremlin official foiled by British Intelligence: British-Russian relations have never been so good!;

Sharp drop in European cyber-crime over the past six months: police put unprecedented success down to international co-operation.

And finally:-

Year-long coma patient wakes.

 

fin


End file.
